Message from Department Head Traci Voyles

Greetings, NC State history faculty, students, alumni and supporters! I am thrilled to share some highlights from what has been a remarkably productive year. This year, our graduate students and faculty have won prestigious awards and fellowships. Alumni have taken the skills they honed in history classrooms to the next level, building high impact careers that tackle pressing societal problems. Meanwhile, current students have traveled the world, conducting new research in places far from Raleigh but rooted in the knowledge they gained right here on campus. 

The department is growing! In 2023, we added two outstanding faculty members to our top-notch public history program: Ajamu Dillahunt-Hollaway, our new assistant professor of African American history and public history; and Nishani Frazier, our new director of public history. In 2024, we will be joined by Jordan Rogers, who will be an assistant professor of ancient Mediterranean history. Read on to find out more about their innovative research projects, and make sure to read these updates about the public history program from Frazier.

I am excited to share that we will be hosting Mae Ngai of Columbia University on April 9 for the inaugural Jonathan Ocko Memorial Lecture. We hope you can join us for this important event as we honor Ocko‘s legacy and launch our new undergraduate legal history concentration which you can learn more about below.

Finally, I am proud to say that I also joined history in the summer of 2023 as a professor and department head. NC State’s commitment to cutting edge research and the Department of History’s extraordinary community of scholars, students and supporters made this a dream opportunity for me. 

Exciting things are coming! Stay tuned.

Traci Brynne Voyles, Ph.D.
Professor and Department Head